both numbers better than expected in the wake of hurricane sandy and fiscal cliff anxiety. >> so it looks like sandy will not affect the numbers even after revisions. >> reporter: georgetown's harry holzer, former chief economist for the labor department. >> in terms of the fiscal cliff, so far we are not seeing any big impact. >> reporter: not even an impact on retail which, for all the talk of online supplanting bricks-and-mortar buying, added 53,000 jobs last month-- much of it holiday hiring, no doubt-- but a healthy 140,000 overall increase in the past three months. not all the new numbers were festive, however. construction shed 20,000 jobs, though perhaps influenced by sandy. manufacturing dropped 7,000. grinchier still, job growth in september and october was revised down by 49,000 jobs. and for all the talk of a lower unemployment rate, its explanation seemed to be that several hundred thousand more americans stopped looking for work in november and were counted out of the labor force. again, economist holtzer. >> this month's change was driven completely by the fact some people